Democrats Build Big Lead in Battleground State Early Voting, Multiple Reports

The good news is that most people voting early are likely partisans who have already made up their minds.

These are likely Democrats who would have voted Democrat no matter who the candidate was.

Remember, the debates haven't even happened yet.

This means that independents and undecided voters are likely waiting til election day to cast their ballot.

Politico confirms that Democrats are building a lead in early voting:

Democrats are amassing an enormous lead in early voting, alarming Republicans who worry they’ll need to orchestrate a huge Election Day turnout during a deadly coronavirus outbreak to answer the surge.

The Democratic dominance spreads across an array of battleground states, according to absentee ballot request data compiled by state election authorities and analyzed by Democratic and Republican data experts. In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Democrats have a roughly three-to-one advantage over Republicans in absentee ballot requests. In Florida — a must-win for President Donald Trump — the Democratic lead stands at more than 700,000 ballot requests, while the party also leads in New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa.

Even more concerning for Republicans, Democrats who didn't vote in 2016 are requesting 2020 ballots at higher rates than their GOP counterparts. The most striking example is Pennsylvania, where nearly 175,000 Democrats who sat out the last race have requested ballots, more than double the number of Republicans, according to an analysis of voter rolls by the Democratic firm TargetSmart.

Though the figures are preliminary, they provide a window into Democratic enthusiasm ahead of the election and offer a warning for Republicans. While Democrats stockpile votes and bring in new supporters, Trump’s campaign is relying on a smooth Election Day turnout operation at a time when it’s confronting an out-of-control pandemic and a mounting cash crunch.

“A ballot in is a ballot in, and no late-campaign message or event takes it out of the count,” said Chris Wilson, a GOP pollster who specializes in data and analytics. “Bottom line is that means that Biden is banking a lead in the mail and more of the risk of something going wrong late is born by Republicans because our voters haven't voted yet.”

Republicans acknowledge Democrats have established a lead, though some stressed it was early and compared it to a basketball team winning the opening tip-off. Trump aides argue that the Democratic advantage will make little difference in the end, saying the opposing party is merely frontloading voters who otherwise would have voted on Nov. 3.

They also note that while Trump has repeatedly bashed mail-in voting — virtually ensuring that most of his supporters cast ballots in-person on Election Day — Democrats are placing a heavy emphasis on it. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released last month showed that nearly half of Biden’s supporters planned to vote by mail, compared to just about one-tenth of Trump supporters.

The Trump team points to special congressional elections earlier this year in red-tinted New York and Wisconsin districts where Republicans trailed in absentee voting but ended up with a substantial advantage among voters who cast ballots on Election Day, giving them wins in both contests.

“The majority of our voters prefer to vote in-person. So, we expect to be well behind on absentee requests as Democrats have made it their mission to push for an all-mail election that brings fraud and chaos into the system. You’ll see Democrats predominantly vote by mail, and our voters will come out in droves to vote in-person,” said Mike Reed, a Republican National Committee spokesperson.

But the data also shows that Democrats are attracting new supporters in small but potentially significant numbers in states they narrowly lost in 2016.

Democrats have been consistently promoting vote-by-mail.

This could explain the massive lead.

The reality, however, is that Democrats typically vote early in compared to Republicans.

Most conservatives want to ensure their vote is counted properly, so they wait until election day.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton appeared to have a lead in early voting.

However, she clearly lost on election day.

So just because Biden is building a lead now, it doesn't mean that he will win in November!

Here's a flashback to 2016 from NPR:

What does [mail-in voting] say about who will win the election?

Only a little. Every day, they give a little more information, but it's still only a bare sketch of how things might ultimately turn out. After all, the results only tell what party the ballot recipients belong to, not for whom those people are voting. And there are tens of millions of independent voters who will turn in ballots.

Furthermore, only a few battleground states publish voting data by party ahead of time. And those results are mixed.

In Nevada, for example, Democrats seem to be slightly ahead of where they were in the first week of in-person early voting in 2012. Meanwhile, Republicans are roughly where they were with absentee/mail-in ballots.

Likewise, Democrats are doing better than expected in Florida, as Politico reported this week, and they have a strong lead in North Carolina.

Iowa is a mixed bag: On the one hand, Iowa's Democrats are beating Republicans so far, with around 46.5 percent of ballots to the GOP's 33 percent. That's right around where Democrats were at this point in 2012.

[...]

Of course, given that a majority of votes nationwide are still cast on Election Day, any of these races could still potentially tip in the opposite direction. Democrats have a strong lead in early voting in North Carolina right now, but then, they did in 2012 early voting as well. And Republican Mitt Romney went on to win the state.

This is an important point to remember when reading early voting numbers: Even a big lead now doesn't mean a big win on Nov. 8.

Remember, patriots, that the election isn't over until it's over!

The media will push this story to discourage you from voting.

However, this should ENCOURAGE you to show up to the polls again!

We must surprise the media and pundits yet again.

We must deliver 4 more years for president Trump!